by Bill Shaner, News Staff
The Student Government Association (SGA) Finance Board, formerly named Budget Review Committee (BRC), which handles the Student Activities Fee (SAF) every student pays to the university, will operate behind closed doors for the 2010-2011 academic year, Student Body President Ryan Fox and SGA Comptroller Andrew Phenix said.
The finance board allocates the SAF to “a wide variety of events on campus for the undergraduate student body as well as annual budgets,” according to SGA’s Student Activities Fee Manual. The finance board approves funding for large campus events like SpringFest, but does not choose performers. Groups requesting funding for an event go to the Finance Board with a proposal, and the board either approves or denies the request.
In an e-mail to The News, Fox said this year SGA is having the groups that to the Finance Board be more specific with names of performers. Which, Fox’s logic followed, prevents any non-Finance Board member from attending the meeting for fear of information, like the name of performers, leaking to the general student body.
Rob Ranley, former SGA president and former head of the Finance Board, said when was president, he allowed the public to attend meetings, though reporters from The News were usually the only people who attended. In the event members of the general student population showed up, Finance Board members would do their best to not divulge the names of performers. Ranley said The News would typically be the only non-Finance Board representation at the meeting, and SGA and The News just worked together to ensure classified information would not leak.
“[Avoiding naming performers] would not allow the group to address why they feel the performer is a good selection for campus and how it fits in with the group’s mission,” Fox wrote in his e-mail to The News.
However, Ranley said it would be a better idea to remain transparent.
“I don’t think there’s anything that really should be hidden,” he said. “Sometimes there are sensitive discussions so it’s hard for the group to really speak candidly about their opinions if they feel uncomfortable about whoever is in the room. But I was always under the opinion that if you’re making the right decision you have nothing to hide.”
However, in an interview with Fox, he said that to his knowledge, Finance Board meetings had always been private, and that there was a special written agreement between The News and SGA allowing a reporter to be in the meetings.
Neither Ranley nor former Huntington News Editor-in-chief Ricky Thompson (’07-’08) recalled ever signing or adhering such an agreement. They said they were both under the impression the meetings were public. Fox said he has seen the written agreement but “wasn’t sure of the history behind it.”
As of press time, Fox did not provide The News with the document.
Phenix, who heads the Finance Board, said that although the meetings themselves are closed, the Finance Board will release information on what they funded and what they didn’t after they fund programs, and will release full details from individual meetings once all decisions are made and contracts go through.
When asked repeatedly via e-mail where it stated whether or not Finance Board meetings could be made public or private in either the SGA constitution, bylaws or Student Activities Fee Manual, Fox did not respond. Examination of SGA documents by The News found no allusion to Finance Board meetings being either private or public.
“I’m surprised they wouldn’t let the student newspaper cover how the student’s money is being spent,” Vice President for Student Affairs Ed Klotzbier said.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article included a paraphrased quote from former SGA President Rob Ranley, in which he said Finance Board meetings were open to members of the public. The sentence was updated to more accurately state that it was Ranley’s choice, not the rules of the Finance Board, that allowed members of the public into meetings.
